{"title":"Elaine Neil Orr","description":"Elaine Neil Orr is professor of English at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, where she teaches world literature and creative writing. She also serves on the faculty of the low-residency MFA in Writing program at Spalding University in Louisville. Author of A Different Sun, two scholarly books, and the memoir Gods of Noonday: A White Girl's African Life, she has been a featured speaker and writer-in-residence at numerous universities and conferences and is a frequent fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She grew up in Nigeria.","products":[{"product_id":"swimming-between-worlds-paperback","title":"Swimming Between Worlds - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom the critically acclaimed writer of \u003ci\u003eA Different Sun\u003c\/i\u003e, a Southern coming-of-age novel that sets three very different young people against the tumultuous years of the American civil rights movement...\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eTacker Hart left his home in North Carolina as a local high school football hero, but returns in disgrace after being fired from a prestigious architectural assignment in West Africa. Yet the culture and people he grew to admire have left their mark on him. Adrift, he manages his father's grocery store and becomes reacquainted with a girl he barely knew growing up. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eKate Monroe's parents have died, leaving her the family home and the right connections in her Southern town. But a trove of disturbing letters sends her searching for the truth behind the comfortable life she's been bequeathed. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eOn the same morning but at different moments, Tacker and Kate encounter a young African-American, Gaines Townson, and their stories converge with his. As Winston-Salem is pulled into the tumultuous 1960s, these three Americans find themselves at the center of the civil rights struggle, coming to terms with the legacies of their pasts as they search for an ennobling future.","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50102820241631,"sku":"9780425282731","price":24.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/Kjd9so9WHI9780425282731.webp?v=1781087416"},{"product_id":"dancing-woman-hardcover","title":"Dancing Woman - Hardcover","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eElaine Neil Orr, born in Nigeria to expat parents, brings us an indelible portrait of a young female artist, torn between two men and two cultures, struggling to find her passion and her purpose.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt's 1963 and Isabel Hammond is an expat who has accompanied her agriculture aid worker husband to Nigeria, where she is hoping to find inspiration for her art and for her life. Then she meets charismatic local singer Bobby Tunde, and they share a night of passion that could upend everything. Seeking solace and distraction, she returns to her painting and her home in a rural town where she plants a lemon tree and unearths an ancient statue buried in her garden. She knows that the dancing female figure is not hers to keep, yet she is reluctant to give it up, and soon, she notices other changes that make her wonder what the dancing woman might portend.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAgainst the backdrop of political unrest in Nigeria, Isabel's personal situation also becomes precarious. She finds herself in the center of a tide of suspicion, leaving her torn between the confines of her domestic life and the desire to immerse herself in her art and in the culture that surrounds her. The expat society, the ancient Nigerian culture, her beautiful family, and even the statue hidden in a back room--each trouble and beguile Isabel. Amid all of this, can she finally become who she wants to be?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50103697932511,"sku":"9781958888339","price":28.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/qiJor_0eCn9781958888339.webp?v=1781097461"}],"url":"https:\/\/blackandbarhe.com\/collections\/elaine-neil-orr.oembed","provider":"Black \u0026 Barhe Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}